Monarch Update

Here are a few more Monarch nominees to add to the list.

 

Chicken Big by Keith Graves

The humor in this picture book is hilarious.  When a “humongous” chicken pops out of her enormous egg the other chicken don’t know what to make of him. He is just so big; certainly, it cannot be a chicken…maybe an elephant, a giant squirrel, or an umbrella. Whatever this thing is it is not a cute little chicken, but little by little everyone in the coop starts to love him.  Our giant chicken uses settle humor to deal with her fellow chickens as they “run for their lives” every time something new happens.  The greyish background brings our chickens closer to us and the text bubbles help us discern each chicken’s personality. 

Say Hello to Zorro! by Carter Goodrich.

Mister Bud is a happy dog. He has everything right the way he likes it- his naps, his toys, his dish, his own bed, and his perfect schedule. That is until Zorro arrives. This little pug has different ideas about Mr. Bud’s schedule and trouble soon follows. Until they realize that they something in common, they have the same schedule! Double the fun for this pair of mismatched dogs.  Goodrich illustrations make this book perfect. The settle looks between Mr. Bud and Zorro, the rised eyebrows, Zorro’s fierce look, the easy colors creating snapshots of their home all create the perfect reading experience.

Clever Jack Takes the Cake by Candace Fleming, illustrated by G. Brian Karas.

These are two of my favorite author & illustrator working together to tell a beautiful story about a boy’s quest to deliver the perfect birthday present. Jack finds himself in a tough spot when he is invited to the princess 10^th birthday party and has no means to bring her a present.  Don’t despair, Jack is clever boy and he figures a way to make the perfect present for her royal majesty. But on his way  to the castle he  encounters all sorts of challenges and his perfect present is no longer so. Will he save the moment?  A must read.  I love the soft tone of the illustrations, the little details, and eager expressions. The illustrations layout follows the text leading us down the path to the castle. The text is succulent and musical, engaging the reader and listener alike. 

Balloons OverBroadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet.

This is a unique book telling the story of Tony Sarg, the boy who grew up to become the puppeteer of Macy’s parade. I found Tony’s life fascinating, his creativity and ingenuity were amazing.  The artwork in this book is unique as well with Sweet's carefully created collages using different materials, illustrations, photographs, and even toys and puppets she created during her research.  The book includes a nice bibliography and sources section as well as personal notes from Sarg's family.  

A Great Monarch Picture Book

Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw Henry Holt & Company, 2011.

“Same, same but different” is a saying Nepal natives use to compare cultures and it is the perfect title for this beautiful picture book.  The author/illustrator shows readers how two kids from different countries- United States & India- can experience the same events in different ways. From going to school to having pets, Elliot and Kailash show us in their pen pal letters how they are similar and different at the same time.  The illustrations are colorful and full of details made with acrylics, crayons, pencils, collage and tissue paper.  This is a great book to start a conversation about our unique differences and similarities.

Monarch Picture Books

 

Biblioburro: a true story from Colombia by Jeanette Winter, Beach Lane Books, 2010.This is a true story about the power of stories.  Luis Soriana loves books and wanted to share them with others in their remote Colombia town.  Since he lacked any form of transportation he used the only transportation he had available, his trusty burros Alpha and Beto. He built some crates and started bringing books to kids in other towns.  He became a storyteller and reader advisory guru all in one.  I love the acrylic illustrations depicting Luis storytelling tales like “The Three Little Pigs”, Winters uses bright details  to create images of the native landscape and the challenges Luis encountered like no road or bandits.  The story reminded me of other traveling librarians like  “The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq”  which I found out was written by the same author.  

 

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen, Candlewick Press, 2011.I read this book a while back to a class of preschoolers and loved the settle humor on it, and was surprised at how young children seem to got it too.  Bear has lost his hat and he almost gives up until he remembers a key detail that will get him his hat back.  Klassen’s illustrations are captivating and a bit spooky as I realized the character’s eyes were following us throughout the story when I re-read it to my son.  

Totally Tots- Colors & Shapes

Today was our first session of Spring Story Time and it was great seeing all the kids so excited to start a new round of stories, songs, and finger plays.  I was amazed that they all remembered our opening song and were ready to participate.  Starting with today's session, I am trying a new approach to make sure we practice good library behaviors like listening, stay seated, keep our hands on our lap, and our mouth closed when we are not singing.  I am hoping this would help my older tots transition into the Pre-K story time in the fall, plus it might help create a sort of "organized chaos."

We started with our opening song "The More We Get Together"and our  "Let's Start Story Time" since we were seated the last verse "and put your bottoms on the floor" was a bit pointless.Our first book was



Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young. I recently meet the author and couldn't wait to share this book with my tots.  I even created my own flannel to go with the story.  The kids were really good at trying to figure what the Something was and by mouse #4 they knew it was an Elephant.  This was a great book to review our colors.

We followed with the song "If  You Are Wearing Orange Today" I made sure to skip to all the different colors kids were wearing like reds, purples, greens, pinks, and greys.  I created a simple flannel using images to help the kids associate different objects and things in nature with colors- like apple and red. Our next book was




Monsters Love Colors by Mike Austin.  I just read this book a few weeks ago and loved the story. It reminded me of "Mouse Paint"and how the mice created new colors using red, yellow and blue.  There is a cute rhyming to it and lots, and lots of color.  I found this song "The Shape Song" and went ahead and made different shapes for the kids to hold up and wave all around.  We finished with a new book I just found as part of my Monarch Nominee challenge.



Perfect Square by Michael Hall.  I loved the book and the concept of the transforming square but I think some of they kids were getting a bit restless so we moved on to our closing song "We Wave Goodbye Like This.".

My weekly contribution to the Monarch Nominee List

 
Perfect Square by Michael Hall, Greenwillow Books, 2011. This book uses a simple concept- a square-to explore shapes and colors. I loved the fold out images paired with white bold text on a solid color background matching the transformations the square experiences throughout an entire week.  Our happy square becomes a river, mountain, bridge, park, and my favorite a garden!  I found the text to have a poetic quality and thought the use of the final pages to review all the changes as our square goes through one last transformation was great. Check it out at our library.


Swirl by Swirl Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman illustrated by Beth Krommers, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011. While cataloged as fiction this book is filled with interesting facts and details about animals in nature that use spiral shapes to grow, protect themselves, create homes,  and even create destruction. The illustrator used strachboard to create the shapes of animals, flowers, nature, within their natural habitats. The colors are a bit dark creating better definitions and contrast against white backgrounds. The bold text alternates from white to black depending on the background with smaller captions detailing every shape within a page. I loved to find all the hidden shapes and look around our environment for more shapes. The back page provides definitions and clever explanations of how spiral shapes are snuggling, growing, strong, clever, beautiful and fascinating. Check it out at our library.

2014 Award Nominations Challenge

This is a year of challenges for me,  all of them good and positive in their own way, for example I have challenged myself to run a 5K,  grow a vegetable garden, and read more.  Okay, that last one is not really a challenge since I already love to read. So I decided to truly make it a challenge and read all the 2014 award nominated in our state.  In Illinois, we have four main award groups ranging from Kindergarten to high school grades including picture books, non-fiction, and YA novels. The Monarch books are for K-3 children books, the Bluestem  comprises books for 3 through 5th grade, Rebecca Caudill books for Young readers (4-8th grade), and the Abraham Lincoln for high school students.  Last year, I managed to read most of the Abe Lincoln , a good portion of the Monarch books, and a few Bluestem. Sadly, my Rebecca Caudill books list went untouched.

The combined lists total 82 books! The good news is that I have already read some of them- Yippee. I will update these lists as I read the books and post short reviews and links to the our library catalog so you can check them out.

Baseball is around the corner

Baseball season is around the corner for many of us. Teams have been selected, practices scheduled, and new uniforms ordered.  Some of us can't wait to be out there hitting, fielding, having fun with our teammates or just cheering them on.  As I was checking our new arrivals this week  I came across this pretty cool story and immediately thought of my family. I wonder if this is one of their dreams....to have enough players to create their own team.

 

Brothers at Bat  the true story of an amazing all-brother baseball team, written by Audrey Vernick and illustrated by Steven Salerno, Clarion Books, 2012. The Acerras had sixteen kids, I know hard to believe now days but in the 1930 families had lots of kids.  With these many kids ( 12 boys) the Acerras had enough to field a baseball team and had 3 on the bench!  The Acerra's story is quite unique not only did they shared a love for baseball, they cared for each other and always put family first.  I appreciated the little details about their family life, their trials and tribulations during World War II, and their life after baseball.  In 1952, they made history when they played their last game together as a team. The illustrations created using crayons, gouache, watercolors and pastel provide a nostalgic sense to the book. The author's note includes factual information on the popularity of all-brother teams as well as details on the book writing process.